Doomed
by Courtney Belle
Summary: COMPLETE. Companion piece to Seventeen. Rated for language. James Potter mulls over his relationship with Lily Evans and realizes...he's doomed.


**Author's note:** Well, I got a review from Mrs. James Harold Potter on _Seventeen_ that inspired me to write a companion piece. That isn't to say I didn't try to suppress the urge, because I'm currently in the middle of horrific writer's block for a multi-chapter fic that I go months and months without updating and I'm a horrid person...but I'm afraid James is rather insistent that I commit HIS thoughts to Microsoft Word, and he is _so_ persistent.

Dedicated to Mrs. James Harold Potter – without whom this one-shot would not exist – and to reviews – without which I'm sure many an author would simply give up. (That said, read and review!)

**Disclaimer: **James is not mine, and that's not okay. But I'm learning to cope and accept the fact that he is the property of JK Rowling and those big, scary Warner Bros. and the Warner Sister too. (Lily is also not my property, but that's okay. I like her well enough. Sirius is also not my property, and this devastates me to the co – you get the point.)

**Doomed**

Oh, bugger.

I suppose I should have known.

It was the bloody eyes, of course.

They're so damn green that it drives me absolutely mad. Also, I don't know if you know this, but I'm doomed.

I think I've been doomed for a while now. Maybe even since the very first train ride to Hogwarts, when she and Snape and Sirius and I were all in one compartment together and I apparently gave her the impression that I was rude. Or some rot. Honestly, half the things she says are so over thought that I tend to disregard them unless she repeatedly brings them up. (Or hits me.)

Also, she is so maddening because she doesn't even realise that she is maddening. Everything she says is logical and rational and bloody pre-planned. I think the reason I'm so worn out these days is from trying to get that stubborn little bint to live in the bloody moment. _No_, she says, _I just can't. I have to think. Go away. _Or _This is so wrong, we're so wrong for each other, I can't even believe you sometimes you're so infuriating and WRONG._

I'm not wrong. Well, at least, I'm not the _only_ wrong one. We're both wrong together. Which she fails to realise of course. So then I'm the one who has to go to her and say sorry and she never says sorry even though she's _just as wrong_.

Do you see?

Bugger.

I love that woman.

Have I mentioned I'm doomed?

When she's reading, she gets this crinkle between her eyes. When she's thinking, she bites her lip. (I chew on my quill. She says it's a nasty habit and I simply MUST stop it. I tell her that biting her own lip is a nasty habit. She asks why. I tell her it's because the only person who should be biting her lip is me. Then she blushes and tries to pretend she's mad at me. We'll snog later.) When she's angry, she's so damn gorgeous that I can't help but grin at her, which makes her even more angry, which makes me grin even more, which generally makes her yell, which usually makes me grab her and kiss her senseless. She resists then she just gives up. Which really makes things a lot easier, when she just gives in and doesn't fight things.

Or over think them.

I think it's our biggest difference. She thinks our biggest differences are that I like Quidditch and she can't get through a match without hiding behind her hands, that I enjoy fooling around and she enjoys a quiet evening with a big book, that I have no regard for the rules and she views them as the holiest of holy things, that she is impeccably neat and I'm incurably messy. But really, it's just that she thinks and thinks and thinks, and then she wonders why she's got a headache. I don't get headaches and I never think too much. It's simple. But she never makes things simple. They've got to be bloody complicated because she is so bloody complicated.

Or, in a lot of different ways, she's bloody simple.

When she's trying to study, I like to distract her. I actually just like to see how far I can push her before she starts blushing or yelling or something. She's amazingly fun. So I lean in as close as I can and watch her get all flustered and unfocused, and it's even better than hanging Slytherins upside down from their ankles.

But then sometimes I get too close, and I can smell lilies and apricots. That's when I'm doomed. That's when the books get discarded and it's minutes before we're hounded by Pince and yelled at for not setting a better example for the students. Oh Irma, there's no need to be jealous just because Filch is too besotted with his cat to notice the extra care you take prettying yourself up. Jealous.

Jealousy. A familiar emotion. Sometimes I get jealous of Sirius's stupid hair. But I tell him that and he bemoans that the romance has gone out of our relationship, so that's okay. I actually don't frequently get jealous because...well, I have nothing to be jealous of. I'm Quidditch Captain. I'm Head Boy. Also, I'm really good-looking. But sometimes when I catch other blokes trying to look at her the way that only I'm supposed to get to look at her, I get sort of jealous. I mean, come on, she's mine. Back the hell off and go find someone else. I know they'll never be as good as she is, but face the fact that I got her and you didn't and I'm not bloody letting her go because it took me three – THREE – years to win her over and I'll be damned if that goes to waste.

But then I see her walking in the torchlight and I forget about anyone else.

Somehow, I did win her over. I went from being disliked to vehemently disliked to tolerated to liked to loved. Though, she is rather reluctant to admit that last thing. It's okay, though. I know she does, even if her huge brain has malfunctioned and neglected to inform her of this fact. And nothing comes out of her mouth without getting permission from her brain first. But that's okay too. She wouldn't be the same if she wasn't endlessly annoying me with her brain and her ridiculously irritating way of overanalysing even the simplest of unanalysable things.

For instance, say I nudge her hand a little bit. I can see the cogs whirring in her head _should I hold his hand or should I wait for him to hold mine but aren't those both the same thing wait no we're on duty this is totally unacceptable._

I keep doing it and I smirk at her because I know I'll get the reaction I want. I love it when she pulls me down by my tie and kisses me first – I never thought she'd do that. I never thought she'd look at me with anything but annoyance or disdain. I hoped she would. I hoped she'd do that and more and here she is doing more and more and more and I can't help but touch her anywhere I can. I know that when I press her, push her buttons, stroke that sensitive spot just below her ear, I know that when I do those things she'll blush and I love it when she blushes. It's so alluring. It's so fucking embarrassing for me to even think but she glows or something. I'm turning into a fucking bird, I swear. Damn her.

I love that crinkle between her eyes.

I'll love her when it's always there and her long auburn hair is grey and short.

Actually, I think I love that already.

I'm doomed.

But for now I'll appreciate the way that long, long hair catches the light and seems to be orange and brown and red all at the same time in different places. Soft. She's softer than she wants anyone to know, and she always has been. I've always seen it. Lily's always been my girl, even before she knew it or before I thought it would ever happen.

I love it when she looks at me instead of her textbooks.

I love it when she kisses back and tickles the back of my neck while she tries to tame my hair.

She likes it. My hair. Now she ruffles it instead of me. I always knew she liked that. Minx.

I don't ruffle her hair but I do put my fingers in it and _Merlin's beard __it's so damn soft_. Like her when she wears it down, and when she whispers in my ear, or when she touches me in places that I only want her to touch. She's a tease, by the way. Lily Evans is a fucking tease. And she knows it now, too. She didn't used to. At first, she was blissfully unaware of the effect she had on me when she did or said certain things, but now she does it on _purpose_ just to see how much she can irritate ME.

I love that she can play my own game.

When we're together, after everyone else is asleep and the candles are almost burned out, she's more herself than she ever is when we're around anyone else. No tone. No sharp looks. No exaggerated sighs or rolled eyes. She's just there, and she's mine, and I am more than willing to be hers. I think I'm probably more myself too and that's something I've never been, especially not as uncomfortable as I am this first time. All my limbs feel totally unnecessary, it's like I've never been with a bird before. Ever. _Ever_.

The way her neck curves so gently into her soft shoulder, and I kiss it. Her soft stomach and her deep, shuddering breaths as I brush my nose against her bellybutton and kiss her there too. I kiss her everywhere. Her hips and up the way they turned into her ribs and her breasts and back to her shoulder and _how did that happen_. I've kissed other girls in all those places, but they weren't so well put together. And I never want to look at any of them ever again because hell. Or heaven. She's got freckles in all the places you'd never expect her to.

I kiss all those too.

Fuck. I've turned into a bird _officially_ now.

We shag.

That's what I'm gonna tell Sirius and Remus and Peter, isn't it? So why can't I tell myself that?

Because this is not shagging. This is the furthest thing from shagging. _And_ I like it better than shagging.

Sirius is gonna disown me.

Oh well. 'Least I've got her feet rubbing my calves and her fingers dancing across my back and her little whimpers and sighs and her lips all swollen and her hair her hair her hair. All messed up. We're both messed up but at least we're messed up together in the shadows and we ditch the stupid sheets because they've no business coming between us or slowing us down. She laughs and I laugh because she scrunches her nose.

Then she starts thinking and I know that can only mean trouble.

Next we lay here. And it means I love you and you are beautiful and you were beautiful.

And don't say anything.

And then she pulls me on top of her and kisses me so hard that I can't even feel it but I can definitely feel her and the only word that can describe what me make is love. And I really don't care that I've turned into a total girl. I love this girl. I know she loves me. For the fist time in my life, I feel like a man.

Can't focus on what Sirius is saying. Or my food. Which is weird, because Sirius is my best mate and my food is my food. But she's across from me and she's wearing her stupid black shoes and her hair is around her shoulders and she's doing the foot thing. I can feel it rubbing against my calf again and all I can think about is the last time she did that. Oh hell.

I'm doomed.

Forever.

I love it.


End file.
